1. Technical Field
The present invention is related to access to secure or restricted content, and more particularly to the management of digital rights to secure or restricted rich media and multimedia content available over high bandwidth connections.
2. Description of Related Art
Over the past ten years, the bandwidth capacity available to consumers for receiving content from the Internet and other networks has increased ten-fold and more. The increased bandwidth capacity has enabled consumers to download larger and larger files and other content, including rich media and multimedia content such as audio clips, video clips, songs, programs and movies (collectively, programs or content). This increased bandwidth capacity has increased Internet usage and the potential for enjoyable and productive usage.
Often the content offered to users over the Internet or other networks is restricted or secured for any number of reasons. For example, the content may be secured since it is confidential and only intended for a certain user or users. Likewise, the content may be available only on a pay-per-view or membership basis and, therefore, is restricted to only those users that pay for the content or are members of a particular group. Further, the content may be restricted since it is copyright protected. Also, the content may be restricted by age (e.g., adult-only content) and is, therefore, restricted to users above a certain age.
Unfortunately, present systems for securing or restricting content are cumbersome and inefficient. The infrastructure to support secure distribution and provide ongoing enforcement of digital rights management is not in place. Existing systems are not flexible enough to provide an efficient system of digital rights management for a wide variety of types of content.
What is needed is a mechanism for flexibly and efficiently providing secure access of protected content to users.